Nancy Grace Bailey Allchin

Nancy B. Allchin, longtime resident of Timonium, Maryland and more recently of Broadmead in Cockeysville, Maryland passed away peacefully from natural causes on Saturday, February 10, 2024 at the age of 99.

Born Nancy Grace Bailey, she was raised during the Depression in Cleveland, Ohio by industrialist Herbert P. Bailey and former Latin teacher Alice Williams Bailey. She graduated from Shaker Heights High School and entered Skidmore College in 1942, shortly after Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into World War II. She graduated with a B.A. in Chemistry in 1946, just after the war ended. Her beau, Richard Allchin spent the war years in the service with the US Naval Air Corps. After his release at the end of the war, he traveled to visit her at college in Saratoga Springs, where he proposed. They were married in 1947 and had three children, eventually settling back in the Cleveland suburbs.

In 1969, the family moved to Timonium, where they joined the nearby Towson Presbyterian Church. The children were soon off to college, and Nancy began her career as a “professional volunteer,” becoming a weekly driver for Meals on Wheels, which was run out of the church kitchen at that time. She went on to organize volunteer gatherings, serve as Council of Site Representative and on the Board of Directors, all the while continuing her Friday meal delivery run. In 2001, Nancy was featured in a Baltimore Sun article headlined, “Elderly volunteers a concern for agency.” The article began with “Nancy Allchin warily eyes the stone steps to the modest Towson rowhouse. There are more than a dozen of them, steep, and her balance at age 77 is not what it used to be. Still, Allchin gamely tackles the steps, hoisting two trays she brings every Friday as a Meals on Wheels volunteer.” But Nancy did not consider herself elderly and continued delivering meals until 2008, when her eyesight forced her to give up driving at age 84.

In the early 1980’s, Nancy learned of the newly-formed Irvine Nature Center at the Maryland Flower and Garden Show, and enrolled in their training to be a volunteer naturalist. She went on to volunteer for 30 years, drawing on her love of nature, education in science, and experience with gardening, organizing, and environmental activism to serve in multiple roles, ranging from leading nature walks for busloads of schoolchildren to being head of the Board of Directors.

The Allchins moved in retirement to the Broadmead community in Cockeysville, and Nancy continued to be a volunteer by befriending new residents and interviewing and photographing them for the campus newsletter, and playing major roles in organizing the campus Barn Sales.

Nancy is remembered for her dedication to her family, for her friendship to every new neighbor, for her for her love of nature and work to improve the environment, and for her support for her church and many charities.

Richard Allchin passed away in 2017 just after their 70th wedding anniversary. Nancy Allchin is survived their three children: Dr. Carol Allchin of Port Angeles, WA; Nancy Joy Allchin of Greenbelt, MD; and Dr. Douglas Allchin of St. Paul, MN; and by five grandchildren and their spouses and partners, including Isaiah Billington, Sarah Conezio and Amber Billington.

The family will hold a visitation on Friday, February 16, 4:00 to 8:00pm at Lemmon Funeral Home of Dulaney Valley, Inc. (a Dignity memorial provider), 10 West Padonia Road (at York Road), Timonium, Maryland 21093. A memorial service will be held at the Broadmead Community Center, 13801 York Road, Cockeysville, Maryland 21030 on Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 11:00am.

Contributions in Nancy’s memory may be made to Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland, 515 South Haven Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21224 or to Irvine Nature Center, 11201 Garrison Forest Road, Owings Mills, Maryland 21117.